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And away we go, headfirst into another season heralded by our 2012-13 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season 100% guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight. We’ve captured here what we believe were the most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back the goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head. Enjoy!

I. Renko is an RTC columnist. He will kick off each weekend during the season with his analysis of the 26 other non-power conferences. Follow him on twitter @IRenkoHoops.

It was a brutal week for the TO26 top 15, as the top four teams lost five games combined. Read on to see how that shuffled the rankings. After the revised top 15, we look at the top 10 results of the past week, sorting through both the headline-grabbing upsets and the big games that may have slipped past your radar. Then we preview the top 10 games of the coming week, which includes a bounty of top matchups this Saturday and several small conference teams putting their first-place records on the line against their stiffest competition.

Southern & Grambling APR Victims. When the NCAA released its annual Academic Progress Rate report in May, the SWAC contained two of the five basketball programs facing a postseason ban in 2011-12 as a result of consistently poor scores over several years. While this news shouldn’t surprise anyone who has followed the APR since it was implemented several years ago, the teeth of the rule is finally taking hold on individual institutions. Southern and Grambling probably were not going to be in a competitive position to make the NCAA Tournament this season anyway, but this is something that each school must take seriously in order to secure their D-I existence. The two institutions submitted APR improvement plans to the NCAA over the summer, and with good reason — without a considerable short-term jump in scores, the next penalty is restricted membership in Division I.

Will the APR Eliminate HBCUs in Division I? Southern and Grambling’s APR predicament highlights a harrowing situation among the two Division I basketball leagues comprising historically black colleges and universities. With the APR cut line increasing from 925 to 930 as of next year, and a corresponding postseason penalty for programs failing to make that cut in the future, the SWAC and MEAC could face an untenable situation where every one of its members is ineligible for postseason play, and ultimately on restricted status. If the 930 threshold had been in effect last year, for example, only one school — the SWAC’s Alcorn State, with its 4-24 overall record and 944 APR score — would have been eligible for the NCAA Tournament. The APR has been shown to correlate strongly with African-American enrollment, and at the low-budget HBCUs that comprise the SWAC and the MEAC, this development presents tremendous cause for concern. Whether this is purposeful or not, we’ll leave for you to decide.

Over the summer, we’ve spent time hearing about some of the next big-name recruits on their way to college basketball: Jared Sullinger and Harrison Barnes, Anthony Davis and Michael Gilchrist. We’ve heard the big-time schools announce their high profile games on their upcoming schedules: Kentucky going to the Maui Invitational and visiting North Carolina, Michigan State hosting Texas and going to Duke. But for the vast majority of Division I programs, they’ve been flying under the radar. There are at present 73 teams that participate in basketball in the six BCS conferences, but there are 347 total programs in Division I. Of those other 274 programs, there are certainly quite a few big-name programs: last year’s national runner-up Butler comes to mind immediately, as does Gonzaga, Memphis and a handful of other schools in conferences like the Atlantic 10 and the Mountain West. But, we were also interested in how the other half (or really, how the other three-quarters) lives, so we spent some time talking to coaches, athletic directors and other people around the country affiliated with some of those other schools — those non-BCS schools, those “mid-majors” — and we asked them about how they recruit, how they create a schedule, how they market their programs, and quite a few other things. Over the next eight weeks, we’ll let them tell you their story, in their own words.

Murry Bartow, Head Coach, East Tennessee State – Bartow is entering his eighth season as the Buccaneers head coach, after having previously succeeded his father Gene Bartow as the head coach at UAB. Bartow has posted a 118-72 record in his years at ETSU and has racked up 241 total wins and four NCAA appearances in his 13 seasons as a head coach.

Eric Reveno, Head Coach, Portland – Reveno heads into his fifth season at Portland having turned around a program from a team that was 18-45 in his first two seasons to a team on the rise with a 40-24 record over the last two seasons. Reveno spent his previous nine seasons as an assistant at Stanford, his alma mater where he was a Pac-10 Conference All-Academic Team selection as a senior.

Jessica Dickson, Assistant Athletic Director for External Relations, UMKC – Dickson has been in her current position, where she oversees marketing and promotions for UMKC, for just over three years.

Todd Miles, Assistant Athletics Director for Media Relations, Long Beach State – Miles starts his third year in Long Beach following a seven-year stretch at Boise State where he was the primary media relations contact for the basketball team.

Gregg Bach, Assistant Athletics Director for Communications, Akron – Bach was named to his current position this past summer after having spent the previous eight years on the media relations staff in the Akron athletic department. His new job makes him the spokesperson of the athletic department.

Kevin Keys, Associate Athletic Director for External Operations, Liberty – Keys is a ’77 Liberty graduate who enters his sixth year back on campus in charge of Liberty’s licensing, promotions and marketing.

Last time out we introduced you to the marketing side of mid-major basketball programs and its range of athletic budgets from the one-man Sports Information Department on up. This week, we’ll take a look at another big difference between mid-major programs: the size of the markets in which they play. When these schools compete in small college towns, they can be the talk of the town when things are going well, but for those schools in bigger markets, they are in danger of being overshadowed and potentially lost in the crowd no matter how well they’re playing at the moment.

With So Many Entertainment Options in Big Cities Like LA, Finding Fans Can Be Tough

Andrew Roberts, Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Information, Arkansas-Pine Bluff: I definitely think it is an advantage (to be in a smaller market), here in the state of Arkansas. I’m originally from Texas, the Houston area, and two schools in that area are in our conference: Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern. They have at times been lost in the shuffle of everything else that is going on, because you’ve got professional sports franchises and other colleges in the city of Houston and high school football and they have sometimes voiced concerns with the amount of coverage they have gotten. There is just so much going on in the city from a sports perspective. At times, it’s just hard for those programs to get ample amount of coverage because there is just so much going on. You’ve got a lot of competition for coverage among those other entities, where in Little Rock its UAPB, its UALR and then that’s really it in the Little Rock area. You’ve got the Arkansas Razorbacks, but there aren’t any professional sports in the state, so there is probably more ability for the news outlets to cover local colleges.

Murry Bartow, Head Coach, East Tennessee State: It can go both ways playing in a small community. Our fans are very much diehard fans. We’ve got very hardcore fans, which is great if you’re winning, and if you’re losing, they let you know about it. It can work both ways, but I’d much rather be in this situation. Let’s say you’re a mid-major program in a big city, it’s tough, because you can easily get swallowed up from a media standpoint and a PR standpoint. In the newspaper, you might be on the sixth or seventh page, if at all, whereas when we do something good or bad, it’s going to be the lead story in our paper. No question, if we play tonight the lead story in the paper tomorrow is going to be about ETSU basketball. If you’re a mid-major in a big city, you probably have to flip to the back pages to see anything about your program. That would be something you fight. So I like the situation we’re in, but if you’re not winning, then it can obviously work the other way.

Eric Reveno, Head Coach, Portland: When you look at Gonzaga, as far as the city of Spokane, they are the biggest show in Spokane, by far. Portland is not the case, we’ve got the Blazers, we’ve got Portland State, we’ve got minor league baseball, we’ve got more nightlife, we’ve got more going on, which is good. But from a standpoint of getting corporate sponsorship and getting fans, if you’re a company in Spokane and you want to wine and dine your clients, you take them to a Bulldogs game, because there’s nowhere else to take them.

Jessica Dickson, Assistant Athletic Director for External Relations, UMKC: We’re not a small market, so I actually think it is a little more challenging for a smaller school in a large market, as compared to some of our league opponents who are in smaller markets where there’s not as much competition for entertainment. I don’t necessarily think that we directly compete with the Kansas City Chiefs for fans. I think that we as a mid-major school compete with that dinner-and-a-movie crowd, that’s a little more comparable to what our price point is. But we do have to compete. There are so many entertainment options in Kansas City, from the art to the theater to the ballet to the movies to concerts at the Sprint center to football games to Royals games to Wizards games. There are so many options of things for people in KC to do, so we have to come up with creative ways to keep UMKC basketball at the top of their minds.

Todd Miles, Assistant Athletics Director for Media Relations, Long Beach State: We’re obviously competing against UCLA, USC, everybody else in our league, the Lakers, the Dodgers… there’s so much to do here. Getting attention in a place like this is a lot harder here than it was at Boise State in terms of local media and stuff like that, but I would say it is probably an advantage in some areas too. You’re more apt to see North Carolina come and play us, or play UCSB like they did a couple of years ago than to see them visit, say some mid-major in a smaller market.

Gregg Bach, Assistant Athletics Director for Communications, Akron: I would say we compete for the professional sports fan in Cleveland, no question about that. That might change a little bit with what has happened with the Cavs and LeBron and all that this summer but certainly the last five or six years, that has been something that we definitely fight. It is not something where football overshadows basketball or basketball overshadows football within our department, I don’t know that we have that issue, but maybe fighting some of those outside things for what people are spending their entertainment dollars on. Even with Ohio State, we’re just two hours north of Columbus, but most of the state is into Ohio State and Ohio State football, so that’s something that we fight as well. I’m not saying someone is not going to come to an Akron game because they are necessarily going to an Ohio State game, but maybe they’re going to stay at home and watch the Ohio State game on TV or go to a sports bar, or something along those lines. So that’s something that we fight and that something we take into consideration a lot of times in terms of how you are going to schedule a game or how we are going to market a game.

Kevin Keys, Associate Athletic Director for External Operations, Liberty: There is no question that we compete with Virginia and Virginia Tech, as our town sits right in the middle between the two. Our philosophy has been for a long time, we’re not going to steal Tech fans or steal UVA fans, that would be a fruitless effort. But those fans don’t always have games at Tech or UVa on the nights that we are playing, whether that be football or basketball. We here are their hometown team and we reach out to them, that’s part of what I would say are our non-traditional fans, that we’ve really begun to grow our fan base with the success we’ve had. Those people are big sports fans and they come watch us. Does that mean they’re giving up wearing maroon and orange for Tech or blue and orange for UVA? No, it doesn’t mean that. But they become fans of ours. Ultimately, we’d love to think that some of them would become primarily Liberty fans, but that’s not our goal. Our goal is to put on a good show and maybe they’ll come to our games on a night when their team isn’t playing.

Putting on a good show is often a goal for these mid-majors, not only getting their fans to come to the games, but making sure they have a good time so that they are more likely to come back. And one of the big things is to create a game atmosphere that is not only fun for the fans and the student base, but also an environment that could aid the basketball team. The first step is getting the fans there.

What You Need to Know. The SWAC is among the worst conferences in all of Division I basketball. There’s no sugarcoating the lack of talent and the brutal out-of-conference schedules that the SWAC member schools play just to keep their athletic budgets afloat. But what they are lacking in appeal and talent, their upper-echelon teams make up for in competitive drive and great coaching. Alabama State took SEC opponents Auburn and Mississippi to the wire on the road last season before dropping both games by fewer than five points.

Predicted Champion. Jackson State (NCAA Seed: #16). Jackson State has played second fiddle to Alabama State in the regular season for two years in a row. But while the Tigers return key seniors Grant Maxey and Garrison Johnson, the Hornets of ASU lost a lot in the departure of PG Brandon Brooks and forward Andrew Hayles. The JSU Tigers will prevail in the conference championship, but not without serious tests from the likes of Prairie View and Alabama State.

JC of HBCU Sports Blog is the RTC correspondent for the SWAC and MEAC Conferences.

In all of the hubbub surrounding the MEAC big win last week via Morgan State University, somewhere lost in the Bible Belt was the beginning of conference play for the SWAC. Conference play signals the end of merciless beatings on the road at the hands of power conference teams, and a chance for southwestern trash talkers to get their pipes warmed up for March.

Let’s take a look at some of the action from the week that was in the SWAC.

THIS WEEK – With conference play in full swing, three teams – Alabama State, Jackson State and Prairie View A&M are beginning to distance themselves from the rest of the SWAC competition. The Hornets and the Panthers are 3-0 so far, and the Tigers are 2-1. Both the Hornets (Alabama State) and the Panthers (Prairie View) have won at least five of their last ten.

JC of HBCUSportsBlog is the RTC correspondent for the MEAC and SWAC Conferences.

Since the last time you thought about SWAC basketball is probably the last time you visited this site, allow RTC to indulge your hunger for all things obscure in college basketball. This week, we look back on why Jesus is developing a strong dislike for SWAC basketball, and how the devil is in the scheduling details for the conference.

JC of HBCUSportsBlog is the RTC correspondent for the SWAC and MEAC conferences.

In case you hadn’t heard, the SWAC is probably the worst Division I conference in America. March Madness usually equates to regional sadness for their conference champion, as a season of hard work, long bus trips and endless hours of practice culminates with the 64th overall seed in the national tournament.

But don’t let that stop you from keeping up with SWAC and its member schools. After all, you’ll impress your friends come March when you give them five keys North Carolina better watch out for in their opening-round tournament game.

THIS WEEK

The SWAC is a combined 1-19 thus far. The sole win was a Prairie View A&M victory over Champion Baptist College, a powerhouse independent who earned third place in the 2007 Association of Christian College Athletics championship. As for notable power conference opponents who rolled over SWAC competition and cut the check, UCLA, Arizona State, Oklahoma, LSU and Colorado are just a few.

WHAT’S HELPING

Seven out of the ten SWAC teams are averaging more than four made three-pointers per game. If that trend continues, you can look for the SWAC to be more than a cakewalk in the national tournament.

Seven teams are also defending the perimeter well, allowing less than 40 percent from the arc. They may give up a lot in the paint, but SWAC teams are proving athletic and energetic at the guard and small forward positions.

WHATS HURTING

Jackson State as a team is averaging better than 81 percent from the free throw line. The next best charity stripe team percentage is 65 percent. Ouch.

Two teams in the SWAC have played at least four games so far. Prairie View’s average margin of defeat is a single point, while 2007 SWAC champion Mississippi Valley State is losing by an average of 29 points per game. Talk about disparity.

WHATS NEXT?

Here are a few of the upcoming key match-ups for SWAC teams. And by key match-ups, we mean guaranteed games that will seem degrading at the final buzzer, but will go along way in preparation for regular season competition.

Jackson State @ Texas A&M – Friday, Nov. 21 – It’s likely you haven’t heard of Grant Maxey, but if you want to see a potential 2010 free agent steal, this is the guy you want to watch. Tough in the paint, reliable on the perimeter, and a solid defender, Maxey is likely a Player of the Year candidate in the SWAC. In his opening game against LSU, he tallied 13 points and seven rebounds in 33 minutes of work. More impressively, he only collected two fouls on the night.

Alabama A&M @ Alabama – Tuesday, Dec. 2 – Bulldog freshman forward Casey Cantey is one to watch in this game. On a roster with heavy production from its guards, the Demopolis, AL, native finished his debut with 11 points and eight rebounds. At 6’5″, he can likely be the Bulldogs most versatile defender and a great second scoring option to junior guard Trant Simpson, who scored 23 in the season opener against Oakwood College.

The Preseason NIT, the Granddaddy of all the Preseason Tourneys, begins tonight, with all sixteen teams in action at four regional pods (Chestnut Hill, MA; W. Lafayette, IN; Norman, OK; Tucson, AZ). Unlike many of the D2 and whatever-else teams thrown into the pods of the CvC last week, the PNIT at least uses all D1 teams for its sacrificial lambs. A new feature is that each of the sixteen teams was seeded, although we’re not sure how BC and Arizona ended up with protected seeds over Davidson (also, why isn’t #1 Purdue playing #16 Miss. Valley St., and #2 v. #15, etc.?). We suppose BC fans would buy more tickets in Manhattan next week? Whichever. Below is the regional bracket, and our thoughts and picks follow.

Best first-round game.#8 St. John’s v. #9 Cornell. You don’t think that Big Red is looking forward to sticking it to their Big East brethren to the south? Click here if you don’t believe us. These two NY teams have never played, but we’re thinking that Cornell will ride its three-point shooting to the upset win in Chestnut Hill tonight.

Other Upset Possibilities. Keep an eye on these two games in the Tucson regional:

#3 Arizona v. #15 Florida Atlantic. Nobody has a clue how Arizona is going to respond to all of its turmoil from the offseason, or whether half of its players will even be available tonight (apparently so), but if there’s one thing we’ve learned about college basketball and despite trite cliches to the contrary – adversity generally does NOT end well. New FAU head coach Mike Jarvis knows how to coach up a team for one game, and this could be a rude awakening for Russ Pennell as a D1 coach.

#7 UAB v. #11 Santa Clara. The recipe for an upset here is clear. WCC talent is generally underrated. This is a west-coast team playing an east-coast team in the Pacific time zone. John Bryant inside the paint. Robert Vaden may still be feeling the effects from his recent arrest hanging over his head (4 pts last game on 2-13 FGs). UAB head coach Mike Davis has been known to lay an egg or two in his career. UAB will have no answer for Santa Clara big man

Will MVSU Break 30?#2Oklahoma v. #16 Mississippi Valley St. Knowing what we know about Oklahoma’s defense, and knowing also what we know about MVSU’s inability to score the basketball, we foresee something along the lines of 75-35 in this game.

They Should Roll.BC at home v. Loyola (MD). Purdue at home vs. Eastern Michigan. And Davidson in Norman vs. James Madison. No way any of these three loses tonight.

Two Evenly Matched Bad Teams.#6 Georgia v. #10 Loyola (IL). Wow, the PNIT should commend itself for getting two Loyola into this tournament. Was Loyola Marymount not available? No further comment on this game, other than to say either team could win, and Purdue will blast said winner tomorrow night.

Regional Picks. We’ve got BC, Purdue, Davidson and Santa Clara (taking advantage of the FAU upset). We really didn’t want to pick against Oklahoma at home, but then again, how do you justify picking against Stephen Curry? If the Wildcats can contain Blake Griffin inside, they can win that game and head to MSG.

Enough with ESPNU!!!! Three of the four televised games tonight in this tournament are on the U. Look, we understand why the games are on there. But why not also put them on the ESPN Full Court package so that those of us held completely hostage by our cable companies can actually take advantage of those games as well? We already pay for the FC service, so what possible harm could it do to expose more paying customers to your product? Make us pay $10 if you like, but just give us access to it!

JC of HBCUSportsBlog is the RTC correspondent for the SWAC and MEAC conferences.

Predicted Order of Finish:

Alabama State (20-11) (15-3)

Jackson State (14-20) (10-8)

Miss. Valley State (17-16) (12-6)

Southern (11-19) (9-9)

Alabama A&M (14-15) (11-7)

Arkansas-Pine Bluff (13-18) (8-10)

Grambling State (7-19) (7-11)

Prairie View A&M (8-22) (6-12)

Texas Southern (7-25) (6-12)

Alcorn State (7-24) (6-12)

What You Need to Know (WYN2K). The SWAC Conference has long been the laughingstock of Division I basketball. They are the perennial #16 seed in the national tournament (nine straight years), and are generally viewed as a warm-up for the number one team in the nation in their quest for the Final Four. Last year the league champion, Mississippi Valley St., set a record for worst FG% (19.7%) in an NCAA Tournament game en route to 29 total points against UCLA. The SWAC is a casualty of out-of-conference guaranteed games, limited resources and a sports audience that knows it by its alias, “Who is North Carolina playing in the first game?”

Others Considered.Jackson State University returns two of the conference’s top-ten leading scorers in Grant Maxey and Darrion Griffin, and Southern University was the SWACs best three-point shooting team and among its best defensive units.

Games to Watch. No reason to pretend that SWAC regular season games have national interest, but here’s a few contests that basketball purists will enjoy.

Jackson State vs. Alabama State (01.3.09). It’s the rematch from the 2008 SWAC tournament, with Alabama State hosting the Tigers who upset them in the semi-final.

Southern vs. Mississippi Valley State (02.16.09). If the Jaguars continue their hot-shooting ways from the 07-08 season, this game could have tournament seeding implications for the favored Delta Devils.

RPI Booster Games. Arizona State had a close call in the 2008 N.I.T. against Alabama State, and while it won’t be close at home against the Delta Devils, you can’t blame a guy for trying.

Mississippi Valley State @ Arizona State (11.14.08)

Odds of Multiple NCAA Bids. Not gonna happen. No need to pretend.

Neat-o Stat.Joel Bosh, a standout forward for the Alabama State Hornets last season, was invited to participate with the Toronto Raptors summer league team. If the name sounds familiar, it should be; he is the brother of NBA all-star and gold medal Olympian Chris Bosh.

65-Team Era. The SWAC is 4-28 all-time in the NCAA Tourney, and the last time a SWAC team won a game was in 1993, when Southern University defeated Georgia Tech.

Final Thought. The way to be a fan of SWAC basketball is not to look solely at wins and losses, but to look at the historical place of the conference and how hard they are working to get better. Or, you could just not watch at all.

During the off season for college basketball, about the only real exciting thing to look forward to is speculation on the schedule for next year–like will a large conference team go on the road to play at a smaller team home court or will teams be playing RPI killers that will hurt them come Selection Sunday? College basketball scheduling is a little different than college football scheduling in that it is almost an up to the last minute thing to develop a schedule. Most college football fans have a pretty good idea who is on the schedule up to four years or more in advance. Most college basketball fans have to wait until a month or two before the current season to find out that season’s schedule. This probably is more exciting for a small college fan to speculate and wait for, but nonetheless interesting.

Being a fan of the Creighton Bluejays, I was perusing some schedules that have been posted on CollegeHoopsNet.com to see if there were any teams having Creighton on the schedule that we as fans did not know were there yet. But as I looked a little closer, there was a schedule developing that caught my eye—Mississippi Valley State.

The AD or coach or whoever does the scheduling for the Delta Devils must either dislike the basketball program as a whole or just want to throw the team on the floor because they know they are getting a lot of guaranteed money. Check out this schedule so far for their month of November:

· November 17th–@Oklahoma in the first round of the Preseason NIT

· November 18th–@Oklahoma to play either James Madison or Davidson in winner or loser round of Preseason NIT

Are you serious? I know SWAC teams are notorious for lining up all of these guaranteed games at schools to help fund other sports and things at their schools, but this makes no sense and you are creating a team that will definitely be tired. Going from Mississippi to Oklahoma, then three days later go to Missoula, Montana, back towards home to Jonesburg, Arkansas and then back the other way again to Pullman, Washington in the next three days. Now mapping out it would made a heck of a lot of sense to actually go to Missoula, take the bus ride to Pullman and then fly back to Jonesburg. But, to cover both coasts back and forth over a couple day period and logging over 6000 miles doesn’t really make sense to me. Doesn’t that destroy your profit margin? That is absolutely ridiculous. BTW, the Delta Devils come into Omaha to play the Jays on December 2nd. They should be a tired team.

I am also excited to mention that I am taking the challenge of a conference correspondent with Rush the Court this winter. Though I am a Creighton fan and would love to cover the Valley, I am right smack in the middle (well sort of) of Big 12 territory. This season should be an intriguing one as we have several questions to answer. Can Kansas reload and vie for a championship repeat? Will Texas finally answer the hype machine and be in contention for a run in March to the Final Four? Will Pat Knight be able to step out of his dad’s shadow to lead Texas Tech to the tourney? And will Doc “Slingblade” Sadler be able to get Nebraska to the NCAA and notch that first tournament win in program history? This will be a fun year and an exciting time to be a college basketball fan.

Remember the Toledo kid (Sammy Villegas) who the FBI busted for pointshaving? In a shocking (!!!) turn of events, the FBI is now saying that it was related to the football pointshaving scandal from last season! (heavy sarcasm alert for you analog types) So… how deep does this mire go at Toledo?

Former Johnnie and Dookie Roshown McLeod, last seen fumbling a ball out of bounds in the 98 regional finals in St. Pete, is back on the radar as a new assistant for Tom Crean at Indiana (yes, we’re aware he got a little run in the NiBbA). Too bad he can’t suit up for the new $24M man.

Former UNC big man Alex Stepheson will transfer to USC and will attempt to get a waiver from the NCAA (similar to what Tyler Smith did last year at Tennessee) so that he can play this season for the Trojans. His father is suffering from an undisclosed illness.

Get ready to see a LOT of Stephen Curry this year (not a bad thing). The Preseason NIT will feature Curry’s Davidson squad in addition to other NCAA teams Purdue, Oklahoma, Cornell, Georgia, Mississippi Valley St., and Arizona. We like the Boilers vs. Curry in the finals.

So Ty Lawson ends up with 26 hours of community service (working on his crossover?) and the city of Chapel Hill still has its celebrated point guard in light of his “drinking while driving” arrest back in the spring. Something doesn’t seem too right about that.

The NCAA denied Pitt forward Mike Cook’s request for an extra year of eligibility. He played in eleven games last season before suffering a knee injury, and according to the NCAA rules, a player is only eligible for a redshirt season if he played in less than 30% of his team’s games. Pittsburgh played 37 games last year – Cook played in 11. That’s 29.7%, so what’s the problem? The problem is that the NCAA qualifies ALL postseason games as ONE game, which means, by their fuzziest of math, Cook played in 11 of 32 games, or 34.3%. Ridiculous. Did you guys know that Kansas won its title in only one game last March/April?